Coverage-aware Unequal Clustering Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are deployed to monitor physical conditions of various places such as geographical regions, traffic, battlefields, etc. Coverage preservation is the most important issue in such applications. Though the coverage aware clustering algorithms for WSNs have been investigated, yet the coverage aware algorithms in the context of unequal clustering have not yet been explored. In this paper, we present a 1-hop clustering algorithm, called Coverage-aware Unequal Clustering Algorithm (CUCA) for WSNs. Here, the aim is to reduce the size of clusters away from the base station/sink as the cluster heads (CHs) are burdened with large communication distance to the base station. Our proposed algorithm allows equal load distribution among the CHs. To increase the coverage lifetime of the network, the sensor nodes whose sensing area is completely overlapped by its neighbors are given higher priority to be selected as CHs. The sensor node's residual energy is considered for partial overlapping. Our algorithm outperforms over the state-of-the-arts existing algorithms, namely HEED and CA in terms of coverage lifetime.